Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Original

The designed concept for this animated facade is a series of 6 illuminated waves that flow from one end of the U-shaped courtyard's inner facade to the other. The goal of this design was to surround the main entrance in animated light patterns that reflect the seasonal mood of the casino. In the center of the courtyard is a 40 ft. tall illuminated guitar with pixel mapped strings to serve as the centerpiece of the installation. The guitar also contains audio-reactive lighting patterns that work in tandem with the facade lighting. Light patterns flow from the facade through the guitar, unifying the experience and giving the courtyard a distinct look, subtle at times, and dramatic at others. Designing animated lighting patterns is a tricky craft. A little like surfing or some kind of modern visual symphony, it’s all about striking that knife-edged balance between nuance, subtlety, and audacity. It's easy to slap a bunch of addressable pixels onto a surface and run an RGB rainbow pattern across it (which seems to be the de-facto state of most controllable LED installations) and another thing entirely to create nuanced light patterns that express a mood and convey an atmosphere that compliments a particular piece of architecture. Animated lighting gives a designer a more dynamic canvas to tell a story, an emotional story. With this installation, it was important to capture the energy of the casino atmosphere yet accent the subtle contours of the architecture the lighting had been installed into. Many sleepless nights were spent on creating looks that struck the right emotional balance. In the end, we populated the LED canvas we had created with a beautiful set of looks, each tailored to a different season or event. Digital Ambiance worked alongside Michael Hemmenway from Fisher Marantz Stone on the light design for Hard Rock Hotel & Casino.